The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria over the weekend has brought a renewed effort by the Biden administration to find American journalist and Marine veteran Austin Tice and bring him home.
An immense push to return Tice, who was abducted in Syria 12 years ago, has been initiated as hostage-affairs envoy Roger Carstens has begun outreach in Beirut, and efforts to engage with sources in Syria to gain information on Tice’s whereabouts have begun, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
“There are intensive efforts underway by the United States to find Austin Tice and bring him home to his family,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday evening. “We encourage anyone who has information about Austin’s whereabouts to contact the FBI immediately.”
In this image taken from an undated video posted to YouTube, American freelance journalist Austin Tice, who had been reporting for American news organizations in Syria until his disappearance in August 2012, prays in Arabic and English while blindfolded in the presence of gunmen. (AP Photo, File)
The State Department’s Reward for Justice program is offering $10 million for information relating to locating Austin Tice. (The State Department’s Reward for Justice)
The U.S. has reportedly engaged in back-channel talks with Syria with the help of Lebanese intermediaries for years, including under the Biden administration, though to no avail.
Syrian officials apparently refused to engage in talks regarding the release of Tice and offered only proof-of-life information if the U.S. would meet its demands, like the withdrawal of its forces from the country.
The last communication the Biden administration reportedly had with Syria regarding Tice was one month prior to the fall of Aleppo, which fell to rebel forces in late November.
Since the demise of Hezbollah following Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, along with Russia and Iran’s inability to once again back the Assad regime, and the subsequent rebel takeover of the country, tens of thousands of captives held in Syria’s notoriously brutal prisons have been released.
A man breaks the lock of a cell in the infamous Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. Crowds are gathering to enter the prison, known as the “human slaughterhouse,” after thousands of inmates were released following the rebels’ overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Sunday. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The infamous Saydnaya military prison, dubbed the “human slaughterhouse” where torture, disease, starvation and secret executions were common, was liberated on Sunday by the rebels who smashed open cells where they found men, women and children held, reported The Associated Press.
Prisoners in cities including Aleppo, Homs, Hama as well as Damascus have been freed, giving new hope to relatives who have not seen family members held in these prisons for years.
In a Saturday address, Biden expressed some hope regarding Tice and said, “We believe he’s alive. We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence to that yet.”
“We have to identify where he is,” the president added.
